LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Cliap._r_„ Copyilght lYo. _______ 

81ielli_QSL. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




REV. FRANCIS E. CLARK. D. D. 



Old Lanterns for 
Present Paths 



By Francis E. Clark, D. D. 

President of the United Society of Christian Endeavor 




United Society of Christian Endeavor 
Boston and Chicago 



21224 



Library of Congress 

Two Copies Received 
JUL 17 1900 

Copyright ent/y 

smmo COPY. 

ORDER WVSION, 

JUL 18 1900 



65303 

Copyright, 1900, 
by the 

United Society of Christian Endeavor 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. An Old Prophet's Message to Young 

People 7 

II. The Secret of National Disaster . . . 15 

III. The Secret of National Prosperity ... 18 

IV. Turning the Face to God 21 

V. Peace that is no Peace 25 

VI. People that Cannot Blush 28 

VII. Because— Therefore 31 

VIII. The Ethiopian's Skin 34 

IX. The Two Ways 37 

X. The Unpopular Side 40 

XI. Sour Grapes 43 



By Way of Introduction. 



[HE messages for young lives "which 
compose this little Tokmie are found 
in the book of Jeremiah. They spoke 

' strongly to my own heart during a 
long and lonely voyage on a tropic sea, and I 
wrote them down more for my own instruction 
and inspiration than with the thought of pub- 
lishing them for others. But whatever reaches 
one heart is apt to reach another. Whatever 
helps one life is pretty sure to help another. 

Hoping that this little book may not prove 
to be an exception to this nearly universal 
rule, I send it on its way. May it speak some 
word of counsel to many a modest youth who 
like Jeremiah shall grow into intrepid man- 
hood. May it tell the secret of national dis- 
aster and national prosperity to many a young 
patriot. May it lead its readers to turn their 
faces to God, to blush only for sin, to choose 
the right way however unpopular, and to emu- 
late the example of the bold, uncompromising, 
yet tender-hearted prophet, w^hose message the 
young men and women of to-day peculiarly 
need to heed. 

F. E. C. 

5 



old Lanterns for Present Paths. 



ATT OLD prophet's MESSAGE TO YOTOG 
PEOPLE. 



IGHT from the past often illumines 
present pathways. As the light from 
a distant star, light which has taken 
ten thousand years to reach this world, 
is just as illumining according to its power as 
the light of the electric globe which the most 
recent invention has given us, so wisdom from 
the sages of the past is quite as trustworthy as 
the late light of scientific truth. The latter 
may seem more brilliant, because it is nearer 
to us ; but light is light, and truth is truth, and 
it is the part of wisdom to receive it and 
open our hearts to it, from whatever source it 
streams. 

A pithy prophet of old, altogether too little 
studied in these self-confident days, throws 
much light on present paths ; and I shall be 



8 OLD LANTERNS FOB PRESENT PATHS. 

glad if this little volume opens the windows 
of any heart to the divine radiance of ancient 
truth. 

The old prophet, Jeremiah, the light of 
whose lantern I wish, if possible, to cast upon 
the pathway of the young, seems, before all 
others, the young people's prophet. He Avas 
himself a very young man when he began to 
prophesy. "I am but a child," he says of 
himself. 

He was timid, shrinking, bashful by nature, 
but bold, uncompromising, utterly fearless by 
grace. He was an ardent reformer, a good 
citizen, a mighty advocate of righteousness. 
He lived in troublous and eventful times. He 
suffered imprisonment in a foul and miry dun- 
geon for righteousness' sake. He stood before 
kings and was the counsellor of monarchs. 
He dared to take the unpopular side. 

Moreover, he was not only a man of com- 
manding personality, a prophet of supernat- 
ural gifts ; he was an author of marked indi- 
viduality. He coined pithy phrases which are 
current to-day. He was a master of a terse, 
epigrammatic style. The mere student of 
literature is surprised to find that many of 
the familiar sayings that have worn well for 
twenty -five hundred years can be traced to 
Jeremiah. Witness a few such sayings: 



AN OLD FEOFHErS MESSAGE. 9 



"Peace, peace, when there is no peace." 
"The harvest is past, the summer is ended, 
and we are not saved." "Is there no balm 
in Gilead? Is there no physician there?" 
" Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the 
leopard his spots ? " 

And yet this prophet of the gentle natm^e, 
but of the bold character, this forerunner and 
type of the Christian citizen, this brilliant poet, 
this racy writer, has been more neglected than 
almost any other Scripture writer. 

This has largely come about, I believe, be- 
cause Jeremiah has come to be considered only 
as a lugubrious, doleful foreboder of evil. From 
his very name a word has been coined which, 
as commonly used, denotes a rasping and queru- 
lous complaint of the existing order. A " jere- 
miad " is an unpleasant and often groundless 
denunciation of things as they are. 

The word does Jeremiah much injustice ; for 
this modest, brave, unassuming, intrepid soul 
spoke only as he was compelled by a high 
sense of duty, by the unutterable corruption 
of the people, and by the warning voice of the 
Spirit of God. 

His career and his words are well worth the 
study and imitation of the young people of the 
present day who would be not only good men 
and women, but good citizens and eminent 



10 OLD LANTERNS FOE PRESENT PATHS. 



Christians. Let us consider his modest youth 
and intrepid manhood a little more at length. 

The Modest Youth. 

The very first thing that we know about 
Jeremiah predisposes us in his favor. He was 
a modest youth. He shrank from publicity. 
He distrusted his own powers. 

When the word of the Lord came to him, 
conveying the tremendous news that he had 
been " ordained a prophet unto the nations," 
Jeremiah cried out in dismay, "Ah, Lord 
God ! behold I cannot speak; for I am a child." 

Most great and strong characters whom God 
signally uses are at their base modest, shrink- 
ing, sensitive. Perhaps we should find that 
all men who have been most useful were at 
first self -distrustful, could we but know their 
early struggles. Surely it was so with Moses, 
David, Elijah, John the Baptist. The early 
days of many a modern hero — Cromwell, Wash- 
ington, Grant — reveal the same characteristic. 

God seems to have little use for the brag- 
gart. Time and circumstance soon prick the 
bubble of self-conceit. " Seest thou a man wise 
in his own conceit ? There is more hope of a 
fool than of him." All history is a comment 
on the truth of this proverb. 

Jeremiah possessed the first requisite of real 



AN OLD PROPHET'S MESSAGE. 11 



greatness. He was modest and humble. He 
did not think of himself more highly than he 
ought to think. He was the very one whom 
God could " set over the nations." He could 
be made " a def enced city, and an iron pillar, 
and brazen walls against the whole land." 

O young man, young woman, you who have 
used your shrinking, modest disposition as an 
excuse for not doing special and earnest serv- 
ice ; you who have stuffed your ears with 
the wax of bashfulness when God has spoken ; 
you who have said with Moses, "Send by 
whom thou wilt send, by any one but me," know 
you that this very disposition which you have 
urged as your excuse is your qualification. 

If yours is a genuine, and not a false, hypo- 
critical, modesty, it is the foundation mortar 
in which may be embedded the " iron pillar " 
and "brazen wall" of the "defenced city." 
Do not longer envy your companion his as- 
surance and confidence and unblushing sang 
froid. It is more likely that God has given to 
you the stirring message, the important life- 
work, than to him. If necessary, the Lord can 
put forth his hand and touch thy mouth as he 
did Jeremiah's, and say unto thee, " Behold I 
have put my word in thy mouth." 

Use not thy bashful modesty as a stone of 
stumbling ; use it as a stepping-stone to a large 



12 OLD LANTERNS FOB PRESENT PATHS. 



and noble life. Speak the stumbling, hesitat- 
ing word that God gives thee to speak. 
It is his word. Do the unaccustomed act 
from which thou dost shrink, though thou dost 
it with awkward and bungling fingers, if it is 
for his sake. 

The modest man that yet dares to speak for 
God and do the right has always been God's 
chosen man. 

The Intrepid Man. 

The shrinking child develops into the in- 
trepid man. His life was passed amid stress 
and storm. He was the unpopular man of 
his time. He was always foreboding evil. Cas- 
sandra-like, he was seldom believed. His pre- 
dictions were not immediately fulfilled, and 
between the date of the prophecy and its ful- 
filment people had time to jeer and scoff and 
berate the seer. 

Jeremiah's own neighbors and kindred hated 
him. In the little village of Anathoth, three 
miles north of Jerusalem, where he was born 
and where his early life was spent, he discov- 
ered a plot against his life which was barely 
frustrated. But this did not turn him from 
his mission or silence his message. 

He lived under at least four kings whose 
hopes and wishes were thwarted by his proph- 



AN OLD PROPHET'S MESSAGE. 13 

ecies. But he was never muzzled. False 
prophets on every side predicted prosperity, 
and uttered smooth sayings which pleased the 
princes and nobles; and Jeremiah saw the 
way to royal favor and worldly happiness 
made very plain ; but he never spake with ly- 
ing lips the message which God gave him 
not. 

Patriotism seemed to demand that with the 
clamorous false prophets he should incite the 
people to an alliance with Egypt rather than 
advise them, as he constantly did, to submit to 
the yoke of Babylon. But for the latter course 
he had the " thus saith the Lord," and not for 
the former ; and he never hesitated as to his 
message. 

Perhaps the period most trying to his faith 
and courage occurred during the reign of 
Zedekiah, a well-meaning, but weak and vacil- 
lating, prince, whom Nebuchadnezzar had 
placed upon the throne, causing him at the 
same time to take an oath of allegiance to 
Babylon in the name of Jehovah. 

In an evil day, however, Zedekiah listened 
to false counsellors, repudiated his allegiance 
to Babylon, and sought alliance with Egypt. 
Jerusalem was besieged. The armies of Egypt 
came to her defence. At first it seemed that 
the allied forces would conquer. The armies 



14 OLD LANTERNS FOB PRESENT PATHS. 



of Nebuchadnezzar withdrew for a little, and 
the siege was raised. Then in the midst of 
the general rejoicing Jeremiah was denounced 
as a croaker, a false prophet, a traitor to his 
country. " Thou fallest away to the Chal- 
deans," they said. By a personal enemy he 
was apprehended, beaten, bastinadoed, and 
thrust into a noisome dungeon. 

But the king, Zedekiah, was more tender- 
hearted, and brought him out of his miry 
prison-house, and asked anxiously, "Is there 
any word from the Lord ? " 

Here, from a worldly point of view, was 
Jeremiah's chance. A single " smooth " proph- 
ecy, and all would have been well. Many a 
bold man, whose spirit has been broken by 
the scourge and the prison-house has recanted 
under similar circumstances. JSTot so Jere- 
miah. 

" Is there any word from the Lord ? " 

"There is," answered the uncompromising 
prophet. "Thou shalt be delivered into the 
hand of the king of Babylon." 

O brave, strong, modest, undaunted spirit ! 
may we learn thy secret of imcompromising, 
unswerving allegiance to the Lord of hosts. 
May we dare to be Jeremiahs. May we dare 
to stand alone against a hostile world, if need 
be, the Lord our only fortress^ ^ind high tower. 



II. 



THE SECEET OF NATIONAL DISASTEE. 



HE burden of Jeremiah's long wail of 
woe is the sin of the people of Israel, 
which brought disaster and destruc- 
tion in its train. There are fifty-two 
chapters in the book that bears his name, and 
the burden of almost every one is summed up 
in the twenty-fifth verse of the fifth chapter : 
" Your iniquities have turned away these 
things [prosperity and abundant harvests], 
and your sins have withholden good from 
you." 

It is the old, old message, that needs ever to 
be reiterated. IS'oah, Nathan, Isaiah, Jere- 
miah, Ezekiel, John the Baptist, and in later 
days Luther, Savonarola, Wilberforce, Park- 
hurst, have taken up the same message, and in 
many tongues, in many lands, have summoned 
the people to awake to righteousness. 

Thank God for the host of young reformers, 
unknown to fame and the newspapers, but not 
unknown to God, whom the recent good- 
citizenship movement has aroused from leth- 

15 



16 OLD LANTERNS FOR PRESENT PATHS. 

argy, and whose burning desire it is to make 
America a people whose God is the Lord. All 
these will find in Jeremiah and his book 
studies of supreme interest. 

Here, then, is Jeremiah's message condensed 
into a sentence : " Your sins have withholden 
good from you." 

All history is but a commentary on this 
verse. A nation is not permanently prosper- 
ous because of the vast extent of her fertile 
acres, because of her genial climate or inex- 
haustible resources. If this were so, sturdy, 
mountainous Switzerland, ice-clad E'orway, 
fog-enveloped England, rock-bound, sterile 
Massachusetts, would have but a small place 
in the family of states. 

There is another element that enters in to 
make a nation strong or weak, powerful or 
puny. We may say it is the only element, be- 
cause it is God. There is a God of nations, 
and upon every page of history since time be- 
gan is stamped this legend : " Your sins have 
withholden good from you." 

Jeremiah's prophecy is one of the greatest 
of treatises on good citizenship, because in 
every line it recognizes this tremendous truth. 
Eead it through with this for the key -thought, 
and its treasures are unlocked. O youthful 
citizen, it is no less true to-day than in the 



THE SECRET OF NATIONAL DISASTER. 17 

days of the prophet of Anathoth. There is 
but one ultimate source of national disaster, 
and that is national sin. When combating the 
evils engendered by national greed and pride 
and debauchery and oppression, you are fight- 
ing for your nation's life. 

God is not upon the side of the strongest 
battalions. All history brands as a lie this 
monstrous piece of cynicism. God is on the 
side of righteousness and justice and purity. 

The bacillus of every national disease that 
ever decimated a people is the same. The 
source of every national disaster can always be 
spelled with three letters, — s-i-n. " Your 
sins have withholden good from you." 



III. 



THE SECEET OF NATIONAL PEOSPEEITY. 

F the one source of national disaster is 
turning away from God to sin, it is 
very evident that the one secret of re- 
covered national prosperity is turning 
back to God from sin. So we should be sur- 
prised if we did not find in Jeremiah this key- 
note, recurring in almost every chapter: 
Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from 
the hills, and from the multitude of moun- 
tains ; truly in the Lord our God is the salva- 
tion of Israel." (Jer. iii. 23.) 

This is one of the truths that has become a 
truism, but it is a truism which in every gen- 
eration needs to be recovered from the obscur- 
ity of familiarity. A man recently told me 
that he had lived all his life in London, but 
had never seen the Tower. There are many 
people in Buffalo who have never seen 'Ni- 
agara Falls, and tens of thousands in Boston 
who have never climbed Bunker Hill Monu- 
ment. So there are millions of intelligent 
18 




THE SECRET OF NATIONAL PROSPERITY. 19 

people in the world who have lived all their 
lives with this towering fact staring them in 
the face from every page of history, but have 
never seen it. There are multitudes in whose 
ears has been sounding as with cataract roar 
this tremendous truth spoken by the voice of 
God himself : " Obey my voice, and I will be 
your God, and ye shall be my people ; " and 
yet they have never heard it. 

AYho, when he stops to look and listen, can 
doubt that Jeremiah is right ? Who can 
doubt that if to-morrow the United States of 
America, or Great Britain, with all her col- 
onies, should become in very truth a God-fear- 
ing nation, a Christian nation in every act as 
well as in name, it would enter upon such a 
career of dazzling prosperity as the world has 
never seen ? 

The billions of dollars spent for strong 
drink would be received and consecrated to 
noble uses ; the millions of lives worse than 
wasted in debauchery and sin would be re- 
deemed, and would contribute to the building 
up and not the pulling down of the state ; and 
the energies of the nation now running to 
waste like the foul waters of an open sewer, 
polluting the very atmosphere, would be con- 
served and used every hour in turning the 
mill-wheels of national prosperity ; and thus 



20 OLD LANTERNS FOR PRESENT PATHS. 

would be made a history more splendid and 
brilliant than human pen has ever narrated. 

Then know, O young men, from this glorious 
vision of a possible nationality that you are 
serving your country best when you are serv- 
ing God best. 

You are not acting the part of a true patriot 
only when you are attending the primaries, 
or depositing your ballots at the polls for a 
righteous candidate, or speaking on the hust- 
ings for national honor. You are performing 
a patriot's duty when teaching a Sunday class 
of poor children, when leading a Christian 
Endeavor meeting, when giving your time and 
energy to an obscure lookout committee or 
prayer-meeting committee, when leading one 
soul to Christ, when in any way you are turn- 
ing the feet of the people back to God. That 
is good citizenship. That is true loyalty. 
That is doing your little best to make your 
beloved land truly prosperous. 



lY. 

TUENING THE FACE TO GOD. 

HE book of Jeremiah is famous for 
its graphic, pungent phrases, phrases 
that live and breathe. Here is one of 
them. Jehovah, speaking through his 
prophet of rebellious and idolatrous Israel, 
says, " They have turned their back unto me, 
and not their face." 

We turn our back on God when we forget 
him, going about our own ways, seeking our 
own ends, thinking our own thoughts. God 
is not in any of our thoughts. We do nothing 
with reference to his glory. We order our 
lives solely with reference to gain and pleas- 
ure. Then we turn our back on God. We 
turn our back to God when we deliberately 
sin. ]N"o man can coinmit sin looking 
steadfastly into God's face. We instinctively 
feel that his eyes are too pure to behold in- 
iquity. As the child will not go to the for- 
bidden cupboard to steal the sweets when his 
mother is in the room, so God's child will 

21 




22 OLD LANTERNS FOR PRESENT PATHS. 

never eat of the forbidden fruit looking in his 
Father's face. 

Futile as man's attempts may be to get 
away from the all-seeing Eye, he will always 
turn his back to God before he commits delib- 
erate sin. 

The results of sin, as well, cause us to turn 
the back to God. As a result of sin we are 
ashamed to look God in the face. Of the Is- 
raelites of old the Lord said through Jeremiah : 
" As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so 
is the house of Israel ashamed, . . . say- 
ing to a stock, Thou art my father ; and to a 
stone. Thou hast brought me forth : for they 
have turned their back unto me, and not their 
face." (Jer. ii. 26, 27.) So our faces, once 
turned away by sin, remain averted from 
shame ; and we sulk and hang our heads, per- 
haps, in bitterness and despair. 

Fortunately the very figure of speech which 
indicates departure from God, with all its at- 
tendant woe and shame, suggests, by way of 
contrast, the return to God. To sin is to turn 
the back ; to repent is to turn the face to God. 
So simple and yet so radical is the great truth 
of salvation. It can be accomplished in a mo- 
ment, but it involves a complete turning a^)out. 
Almost in the twinkling of an eye can the face 
be turned, but it must be turned. There is no 



TURNING THE FACE TO GOD. 



23 



salvation while the face is averted by sin, while 
the eye is downcast by despair, while the coun- 
tenance is hidden in sulky shame. Many defi- 
nitions of what it is to become a Christian 
have been given : this is one of the best : 
" Turning the face to God." There is life in a 
look. 

Young man, young woman, you long to 
know your relationship to God. Here is a 
test. Can you look God in the face ? Can 
you write down your deeds and words and 
secret thoughts, and, looking up into the face 
of your Father, say, " Here is my life, O God ; 
let thy blessing rest upon it " ? Or, when you 
think of your life, or some portions of it, do 
you avert your face from the all-seeing One ? 

Do not think it is a timid, scared life you 
would live with God's eye ever consciously 
upon you. The child playing on the nursery 
floor is not abashed or made uneasy by its 
mother's presence, but in every new game and 
fresh childish joy looks up into her eye for the 
answering smile it is sure to find. The joy is 
not complete unless the mother sees and 
shares it. So the Christian's chief joy and 
satisfaction is that God sees him, and that he 
can see God in all the trivial round, the com- 
mon task of life. 

There is another side to this. God turns 



24 OLD LANTERNS FOR PRESENT PATHS. 



his back to those who persistently turn their 
backs to him. " I will show them the back, 
and not the face, in the day of their calamity," 
says Jehovah through Jeremiah. Oh, terrible 
calamity ! Oh, awful curse ! Oh, sad conden- 
sation of all the woes of this woful prophecy ! 
But upon us this curse need never fall ; for, if 
we turn the face to God, even though we are 
in the far country, w^e shall see him coming 
out to meet us with the robe and the ring, and 
turning upon us his reconciled face. 



Y. 



PEACE THAT IS NO PEACE. 

of the greatest temptations of Jere- 
miah's life must have been to cry, 
"Peace, peace," when there was no 
peace. It is always easier for sensi- 
tive souls to speak smooth words than rough ; 
and Jeremiah was essentially a gentle, sensi- 
tive man. It is never pleasant to be regarded 
as a Cassandra. Considerations of patriotism 
seemed to demand that he should hearten the 
people rather than discourage them. King 
and prince and people alike asked for words 
of cheer and hope rather than of woe and 
denunciation ; but Jeremiah would not heal 
slightly the hurt of the daughter of his peo- 
ple ; he would not cry, " Peace, peace," when 
there was no peace. 

The individual is the nation in miniature ; 
and there is false peace which we, like the Is- 
raelites, seek to cherish, against which some 
intrepid Jeremiah should warn. 

There is a peace of false doctrine. The phi- 
losophies of atheism, materialism, utilitarian- 

25 




26 OLD LANTERNS FOB PRESENT PATES. 



ism, all bring a certain satisfaction to their vota- 
ries. In a measure their speculations satisfy 
the craving of the insatiable mind. Even the 
absurdities and hopelessness of pessimism, 
v^hich finds the universe an absolute tangle, 
life a huge mistake, the world a dreary waste 
of suffering and woe, governed by the great 
malevolent Ujs'CONSCIOUS, furnishes a kind of 
satisfaction to Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and 
their followers. But who can doubt that it is 
a peace which is no peace ? 

There is a peace produced hy indifference to 
truth. The call to repentance, once resisted, 
when repeated, sounds ever fainter and fainter. 
There are men who can sit unmoved under the 
most searching gospel appeals. Why ? Be- 
cause of the peace born of familiarity and in- 
difference. These same truths, presented in 
the same way, in boyhood aroused those same 
men to an agony of concern. But the con- 
cern was quieted ; the grieved spirit ceased to 
strive, and the opiate of indifference, frequently 
administered, has produced a peace which is no 
peace. 

There is a peace produced hy sin. The sin- 
ful deed that when first indulged terrifies and 
horrifies us, when oft repeated, loses all its 
horror. At first it seems as if the very pit 
of perdition were yawning at our feet ; but 



PEACE THAT IS NO PEACE. 27 

each repetition of the act fills up the pit and 
plants a grove of sensuous delights in its place. 

It is the old, old story. We first endure, 
then pity, then embrace. The leprosy of sin 
eats into the vitals little by little, until the 
living, sensitive flesh becomes as dead and 
insensitive as the wood of a graven im.age. 
This is an awful peace, that is no peace, — the 
peace of corruption and death. 

But there is a peace that is jpeace^ the peace 
^ of which our Lord speaks with reiterated 
emphasis, the peace which he left, the peace 
which the world cannot give, which the world 
cannot take away. This is the peace which 
the prisoner for righteousness' sake has known 
in the dungeon, which the mother has known 
at the coffin of her firstborn, which the 
martyr has known on the rack and at the 
stake. 

Is this peace abiding ? 

The saints of all the ages answer. Yes. 

Does it endure the stress and strain of care 
and sorrow and suffering ? 

Martyrs, prophets, priest, confessors, answer 
Yes. 

Is it for you and me ? 

Ten million humble souls in all the ages, 
their faces transfigured with its radiance, an- 
swer. Yes. 



YI. 



PEOPLE THAT CAN]?5"0T BLUSH. 



HE blush that reddens the cheek may 
be a sign of conscious sin. The pallid, 
unblushing cheek may be a sign of 
greater sin. Shame hangs out its red 
flag for misdeed or mistake. Shamelessness 
strikes its colors, and shows no sign of dis- 
tress. 

It is a sad thing when a man cannot blush. 
" Were they ashamed when they had com- 
mitted abomination ? " said Jehovah speaking 
through Jeremiah, "i^ay, they were not at 
all ashamed, neither could they hlush ; there- 
fore shall they fall : in the time of their visita- 
tion they shall be cast down, saith the Lord." 

Shameful shamelessness brings this dreadful 
reward : " I will surely consume them, saith 
the Lord ; there shall be no grapes on the 
vine, nor figs on the fig-tree ; and the leaf shall 
fade ; and the things that I have given them 
shall pass away from them." 

Is this too hard a sentence, too dire a fate ? 

28 



PEOPLE THAT CANNOT BLUSH. 



29 



We cannot think so when we realize what 
inability to blush for sin invokes. 

Unhliishing sin means persistent sin. The 
first time, the tenth time, the one hundredth 
time, the soul blushes for itself in secret ; and, 
if discovered, the red cheek shows the red 
shame beneath. But the thousandth time the 
sin has become so familiar and customary a 
thing that it excites no uneasy surprise, and 
the telltale cheek records no emotion. It 
cannot blush. 

Unblushing sin means sin unrejoented of. 
Sin repented of and forgiven, even unto sev- 
enty times seven, does not wholly indurate 
the heart. True repentance and confession 
keep the soul fresh and sensitive and sweet. 
Unblushing sin no longer wishes to repent or 
sees the necessity of repentance, and at last 
the soul no more feels contrition than a mar- 
ble statue can display remorse. 

Unblushing sin is hopeless sin. ISTot be- 
cause the sin itself may be worse than other 
sins, but because, from the very nature of it, 
sorrow, repentance, forgiveness, restoration, 
cannot follow. The Magdalen could be for- 
given ; the harlot could be counted among the 
worthies of faith ; David could be restored to 
divine favor, because, when he heard Na- 
than's " Thou art the man," he could blush, and 



30 OLD LANTERNS FOR PRESENT PATHS. 



cry out in anguish, " Against thee, thee only, 
have I sinned." But for the unblushing sin- 
ner there is no hope. This is the unpardon- 
able sin. This is the sin that grieves and 
drives away the Spirit of God. This is the 
sin that renders the heart insensitive, callous, 
unblushing, so that repentance and faith are 
as impossible as pain is to a leper's dead and 
bloodless finger-tips. 

O God, keep us from the dreadful fate of 
the man who cannot blush. 



YII. 



BECAUSE — THEREFORE. 

OULD that we could always see the 

" THEREEORE " t'ollow the " BE- 
CAUSE " in actual life as plainly as 
we can see them upon the printed 
page. " And the Lord saith," wrote Jeremiah, 
" Because thev have forsaken my law which 
I set before them, and have not obeyed my 
voice, neither walked therein . . . there- 
fore, thus saith the Lord of -hosts, the God of 
Israel, Behold I will feed them, even this peo- 
ple, with wormwood, and give them water of 
gall to drink." 

The " lecause " is always followed by the 
" therefore.'''' Isot at once, perhaps. In this 
chapter of Jeremiah after the " hecaiise " we 
have to look through two brief verses before we 
find the " therefore^ Thirty-six words inter- 
vene, but the " therefore " follows none the less 
surel3^ Sentence against an evil work is not 
always speedily fulfilled, but it is always ful- 
filled. The wormwood always follows the for- 

31 




32 OLD LANTERNS FOB PRESENT PATHS. 

saking ; the water of gall the disobedience. 
Search history through, and tell me whether 
you can find a single instance in nation or 
family where godlessness, debauchery, and dis- 
obedience of the laws of God brought perma- 
nent peace and prosperity. Unhesitatingly I 
dare to challenge the strictest, most careful re- 
search where the history of nation or family 
can be seen as a whole. 

To be sure, we sometimes see a little segment 
of a disobedient life, and think it prosperous. 
We fret ourselves because of the prosperity of 
the wicked. But, when we understand " their 
end," we see, as did the Psalmist, how foolish 
and um^easonable was our fretting. The seem- 
ing prosperity is only the interlude between 
the " hecause " and the " therefore!''' When we 
see enough of the arc of a man's life or a na- 
tion's life, we always see that there is a " there- 
fore " as well as the " 'because.''^ 

Because not only always is, but always 
must be, followed by " therefore.''^ It is not 
a matter of coincidence ; it is a matter of ne- 
cessity. It is not an abstraction of theology. 
It is a matter of science, of physics, of law. If 
the effect does not follow the cause, God is not 
God. The throne of the universe is abdicated 
if " hecause " has no ^' therefore!'' 

These truths are so trite and threadbare that 



BECAUSE— THEREFORE. 33 



one feels like apologizing for their restatement. 
Ah ! but their application to every individual 
life can never become a worn-out, useless task. 
Every man must realize the inevitable coming 
" therefore " in his own life, if he would not 
make shipwreck of it. It is the lack of this 
that has brought to many a fair young life 
recklessness, misery, perdition. 

But there is a brighter side. Thank God, 
there is many another and many a blessed 
" 'because " and " therefore.-^ Because repent- 
ance, therefore life. Because faith, therefore 
salvation. Because trust, therefore peace. 
Because self-surrender, therefore fulness of joy. 
And these causes and these effects, thank God 
again, are just as inevitable and just as neces- 
sary as those which Jeremiah records. 



YIII. 



THE ETHIOPIAN'S SKIN. 

A.'NY of Jeremiah's pithy sayings 
have passed into current proverbs ; 
and all literature does tribute 
to him, though often unconsciously, 
l^one of his trenchant phrases have been caught 
up by more lips or printed upon more pages 
than this : " Can the Ethiopian change his 
skin, or the leopard his spots ? " 

Often as this familiar phrase is used, its true 
significance is seldom realized. It relates, as 
Jeremiah used it, to the persistence of charac- 
ter. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or 
the leopard his spots ? Then may ye also do 
good, that are accustomed [or taught] to do 
evil." The last part of the verse, though sel- 
dom quoted, is quite as important as the first 
part. 

There are two answers to the question, dia- 
metrically opposed to each other, but equally 
true : No, Yes. Can an Ethiopian change his 
skin ? Xo. Character tends to fix itself. The 

34 




THE ETHIOPIAN'S SKIN. 



35 



evil stain becomes ever more indelible. The 
bad thought, repeated and repeated and re- 
peated over again, becomes at last a part of the 
texture of the soul. It is woven into the life 
as the black figure is worn into the carpet. It 
seems as impossible to get it out of the soal as 
to get the constantly recurring figure out of 
the carpet without destroying it. The evil 
deed, repeated until it becomes habitual, be- 
comes no mere act, accomplished and done 
with ; it becomes a part of the man as truly as 
the black skin is a part of the Ethiopian or the 
spots are characteristic of the leopard. 

Can the Ethiopian change his skin ? Alas ! 
alas ! no. It becomes only blacker and 
blacker. But ask. the question once more 
from the standpoint of the gospel of grace. 
Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Yes, 
yes, ten million blood-washed Ethiopians an- 
swer, Yes. This is the "miracle of grace." 
Salvation consists not in emotion, in hallelu- 
jahs, in raptures, in the acceptance of a body 
of doctrine. It is the whitening of the Ethi- 
opian's skin, the changing of the leopard's in- 
born spots. It is the learning to do good of 
those who are accustomed to do evil. 

Will cannot do this. Yows, pledges, a 
mother's tears, a wife's heart-broken entreaty, 
none can change the spots ; but in a multitude 



36 OLD LANTERNS FOB PRESENT PATHS. 



of cases the Holy Spirit has Vv^rought this 
wondrous change, and the blackened soul has 
become whiter than snow. 

All history is full of these transformations. 
Our own limited observation and experience 
have furnished added examples. It is of no 
use to dispute the sun in the heavens, or that 
the stars shine at night. There they are ; look 
at them. How is the change wrought ? By 
the complete surrender to God of the whole 
being, black skin, leopard spots, bad habits, 
hardened ways, perverse views, everything, 
with the sincere prayer that he would hence- 
forth take and change and cleanse and keep. 

By God's grace the Ethiopian can change 
his skin, the leopard can change his spots. 



IX. 



THE TWO WAYS. 

EEEMIAH is noted for his directness 
and clear-cut simplicity. He never 
confuses issues. There is a right and 
a wrong. There is life and death. 
There is obedience and prosperity, and diso- 
bedience and destruction. The whole message 
of his more than forty years of prophesying is 
condensed into the eighth verse of the twenty- 
first chapter : " Thus saith the Lord : Behold 
I set before you the way of life, and the way 
of death. " 

In this particular instance the way of death 
meant remaining in the besieged city of Jeru- 
salem ; the way of life meant going out to the 
Chaldeans, in accordance with the command 
of God. 

But, whatever the circumstances, whatever 
the century, there are always two ways, and 
only two ways, open to the feet of man : one, 
the way of life ; the other, the way of death. 

To be sure, one often seems to come to the 

37 




38 OLD LANTERNS FOB PRESENT FATHS, 

crossroads where four ways meet, or to a whole 
network of converging streets ; but careful 
scrutiny will resolve the seeming jumble of 
highways into two. All on one side converge 
into the right-hand road, all on the other into 
the left-hand, after running a little way, just 
as some paths go over the hill and some 
around, but all come together on the other 
side. 

This thought greatly simplifies the prob- 
lems of life. There is always God's way and 
the devil's way. Becoming a Christian is but 
choosing God's way. Blindly, gropingly, 
stumblingly we may enter upon this way at 
first; frequent by-paths into flower-covered 
swamps, where our feet sink into the mire of 
sin, may tempt us from the king's highroad ; 
but little by little, if our purpose is to walk in 
God's road, we find it growing more fully de- 
fined, more attractive, more easy to the feet. 

There is also Satan's way, and he who 
chooses it finds, whatever its twistings and 
turnings, however it seems sometimes to 
double upon itself, that it leads inevitably and 
always in one direction. 

The Way of Life ! The Way of Death ! Do 
not think that these are phrases of the Bible 
alone. Human experience is full of them. 
The right is the way of life. Ask the saint ; 



THE TWO WAYS. 



39 



ask the martyr who followed this way until it 
led him into the flames or the wild beasts' 
den ; ask the commonplace, every-day Chris- 
tian who has actually walked with God ; and 
without a single exception they will all tell 
you this is the way of 'Ufey joyous, full, ecs- 
tatic life, life more abundant. The wrong is 
always the way of death. Ask the drunkard ; 
ask the diseased libertine ; ask the miser ; ask 
the selfish sensualist; and their wizened, 
shrunken, atrophied characters, if not their 
words, will tell you that this road leads to 
death. 

But what are right and wrong, the roads 
that lead to life or death ? 

The same now as in Jeremiah's day. Eight 
is obedience to God, and obedience is life. 
Wrong is disobedience to God, and disobedi- 
ence is death. 



X. 



THE UNPOPULAR SIDE. 

EEEMIAH was on the unpopular side 
all his life. It was not his fault, but 
his misfortune. With his shrinking, 
sensitive soul it must have been genuine 
torture to him to be in constant opposition to 
all the leading men of his time. 

JSTor was it especially to his credit that he 
was on the unpopular side. It was to his 
credit that he dared to be on the right side ; 
but the right side is sometimes, nay, often, I 
am glad to believe, the popular side ; and the 
reformer has the grateful task of leading on 
to victory amid the plaudits of the people. 

Not so with Jeremiah. He was always in 
opposition to the people, because the people of 
his day were ahvays in opposition to God. 
He was always prophesying evil, because there 
was no good to predict concerning their dis- 
obedient ways. 

Most trying of all the experiences in his life 
must have been the time when he was com- 

40 




THE UNPOPULAR SIDE. 



41 



pelled to tell the people that it was God's 
will that they should submit to the Chaldean 
invader, to show the white flag of truce to the 
despoiler of their city, and unresistingly to go 
into captivity to Babylon. How pusillanimous 
and cowardly he must have seemed ! 

How unfortunately he contrasted with the 
other high-stepping, spirited prophets, who 
counselled resistance to Babylon, and alliance 
with Egypt, and fighting for their liberties to 
the bitter end ! They must have posed as the 
reformers, the statesmen, the noble-minded 
patriots. He was the traitor, the coward, the 
white-livered poltroon. 

The reform shibboleth is not always the 
watchword of obedience to God. The cheap- 
est kind of popularity can sometimes be won 
under the banner of reform. 

In these days especially we need not only to 
try the spirits, but to try the reforms. Many 
a popular fad may be picked up to furnish a 
rally ing-cry. It requires no courage and few 
brains to sound it. To be a fanatic is not 
necessarily the sign of courage or divine 
wisdom. To ramp and rave, and denounce 
the times, and pour out bitter invective against 
the real or supposed evils of the day, is not a 
sure sign of the true prophet. 

To most Jews just before the Babylonian 



42 OLD LANTERNS FOB PRESENT PATHS. 



captivity the false prophets who counselled re- 
sistance to Babylon to the bloody end must 
have seemed the real reformers. Jeremiah 
must have seemed the slow conservative, with 
his talk about giving up the city to JSTebuchad- 
nezzar's army. The question is not what is 
popular, but what is right. To be deemed 
a coward may require the sublimest courage. 
There is but one real test of courage or cow- 
ardice, of wisdom or folly ; there is but one 
test of the true reformer. Is he obedient to 
God's will ? Is his reform God's reform ? 
Jeremiah always stood this test. 



XI. 



SOUR GRAPES. 

REMIAH'S great life-work was to 
bring home to the people of Israel a 
sense of their personal accountability. 
" Because of your sin utter destruction 
shall come upon youP " Because you have 
turned your back to God, God hath turned 
his back to you," was his constant message 
reiterated under many forms. 

It is, then, very lilie him to deny the truth 
of the familiar old proverb, " The fathers have 
eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth 
are set on edge." "J^o, no," he says; "this 
is not so ; but every one shall die for his own 
iniquity ; every man that eateth the sour 
grape, his teeth shall be set on edge." 

This is a good message for the modern 
young man or woman to ponder. 

We hear much in these days about environ- 
ment and heredity, and we sometimes come 
to regard ourselves with a kind of complacent 
pity as the victim of circumstances over which 
43 




44 OLD LANTERNS FOR PRESENT FATES. 

we have no control. The evils and sorrows 
from which we are suffering, and the sins to 
which we are prone, we lay to the sour grapes 
which our fathers have eaten. 

Away with all such silly self-pity ! For our 
own iniquity we suffer and die. With our 
own hands we have plucked the sour grapes ; 
with our own lips we have pressed the juice 
that has set our teeth on edge. 

We have made a failure in life ? Why ? 
]^ot because our father was poor and illiterate, 
and gave us small advantages of education 
and a home without books or literary culture. 
Many a man has overcome all these diiSculties 
and far more serious ones, and has made for 
himself a good and honored name. Why, 
then, have not we ? Because we have neg- 
lected to make use of the opportunities we 
have, our life is the comparative failure that it 
is. 

We are frequently overcome by some beset- 
ting sin, and we lay it to our disposition, the 
temperament inherited from father or mother, 
so hasty, so passionate, so prone to untruth ! 
O, let us be honest with ourselves at least 
while we read this page, with no eye on us 
but God's. It is our own indulgence in anger 
and evil thought and deceit that has given our 
disposition its terrible tyranny. 



LofC. 



SOm GRAPES. 



45 



Or we mourn our indifference and coldness, 
our backsliding and lack of religious vigor and 
vitality ; and in languid self-pity we lay it to 
our worldly surroundings, our absorbing busi- 
ness, our peculiar environment. And again 
we deceive ourselves, or try to deceive our- 
selves, for in our heart of hearts we know 
that it is our own self-indulgent souls alone 
that are responsible for our estrangement from 
God and for our lack of joy and vigor in his 
service. 

This lesson lies at the beginning of all 
lessons. It is the first in the primer of the 
deeper Christian life. It is the beginning of 
a return from worldliness. It is the precursor 
of better days ; for we see that in our own 
hearts alone we must begin the reform, when 
we fully realize that our teeth are set on edge 
because we ourselves have eaten the sour 
grapes of disobedience and departure from 
God. 



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